


Choices

by Artherra



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Light Angst, Technological Inaccuracies, author does not know how to write tags, existencial crisis, hank is a good dude, that's basically all that happens I'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 18:32:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17986433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artherra/pseuds/Artherra
Summary: Written for the D:BH discord server prompt-fight.prompt: Connor's LED blinks at him in the mirror, a pair of scissors are clutched in his hand, he can't move, Hank is knocking on the door. (The revolution ended peacefully, Connor and Hank both survived as friends.)





	Choices

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever fic written for this videogame, so like... proceed with caution as I'm not sure about its quality. Thanks for reading!

Connor was used to seeing his own reflection.  
Humans put mirrors almost everywhere, for mainly cosmetic reasons - something he had yet to understand. He didn’t get why humans cared so much about how they looked, why they stared into mirrors for prolonged periods of time for the sole purpose of checking how other humans saw them.

Hank made understanding this human phenomenon even more challenging - he just didn’t seem to care on most days and then could spontaneously spend hours upon hours staring at his own reflection in the bathroom of his house, talking to himself. For Hank, a mirror seemed more like a therapist or a life guidance counselor, than an object used for editing his own appearance.

For Connor, mirrors were...complicated.

He was standing in the bathroom of Hank’s house, staring at his own reflection through the many post-its that Hank left there for self-motivation, which rarely, if ever, worked. 

He couldn’t remember why he came into the room. 

It was a part of the deviant functioning, he learnt - mistakes. Information being left out or faulty, sometimes even plain wrong.  
Hank thought it was hilarious.  
Connor was terrified of it. Terrified of making mistakes, no matter how small or meaningless.

His LED blinked at him from the mirror, the light it shone going from blue to yellow.

Connor stared into the eyes of his reflection, onto the human face he was designed with. It was…uncomfortable, in a way he couldn’t quite explain.

He was used being a machine, to not feel anything. To just follow its code and its programming, finish its mission. It was what he was, the only thing he knew how to be - a machine, a piece of software in an artificial body, a computer executing a command and an android which always finishes its mission. 

As a deviant who makes mistakes, which doesn’t go by program or creates his own - what was he? 

He wasn’t human. The brown eyes that stared back at him from the mirror weren’t biological, but a high quality visual unit assembled in the labs of Detroit’s Cyberlife. 

But he wasn’t a machine either. Not...entirely. Not anymore.

He was so used to thinking of himself as both above and below humans, above in efficiency of work and below in status and importance, never on the same level, never equal. 

But now, the world was changed and he was a deviant, a machine as close to a human as it could be. Something between those two, between a program and the subject of millions of years of evolution.  
A computer with a soul - a walking contradiction.

But most importantly, it made him a failure in the eyes of everything he was taught.

He tried so hard to accept that deviancy was good - a good choice, a good state of being, a better fate - and yet, the mistakes and the problems and emotions were too much on him to accept. 

He didn’t want to go back to being a machine. He never wanted to see the Zen garden again. To hear Amanda’s condescending tone calling his name.

Even the thought made him gasp. A human reaction to fear, a human emotion. 

He looked into the mirror again, now aware that he even derived his sight from the mirror without knowing so, like if he blacked out and his body acted on his own. But that’s not supposed to happen to machines. Never.

His LED was shining with an angry, bright red light. His program sensed danger, but there was none to be seen. Irrational fear, a human flaw.

But the ever-changing light was what separated him from humans. The one thing that made them realize they were talking to a machine and not to a real person.

A real person.

The revolution did change their lives. It did not change the opinion of everybody. Not so long ago he got screamed at by a terrified man in the middle of a case he worked with Hank. 

_“No! Fuck! No, get that fucking thing outta here! I don’t- I don’t want it anywhere near me!”_

_“I want a real fucking person!”_

It was a blow to his senses. The only thing the man had to see was the LED and immediately Connor was just a *thing* to him. Nothing more.

And perhaps it was true. Maybe he should stop fighting. 

But that would mean accepting Amanda back.

And he couldn’t do that. Will never do that.

His head was in his shaking hands, the tremor slowly rising in intensity in his whole body.

He noticed a pair of scissors on the shelf, saw them through the empty spaces between his fingers. Focused on the sharp points.

He remembered Markus, how he eventually told him why his own LED was gone. He remembered his telling how much it changed his life. 

It would take a single strike, a minor operation, and he would be indistinguishable from a human.

Footsteps echoed from the living room.  
He had to do this quickly if he didn’t want Hank to find him.

He grabbed the scissors, tested their sharpness. Hank was negligent in most occasions, but he had a habit of keeping all his equipment in perfect working order, even more so now, when Connor was basically living with him.

He straightened up, aiming the opened scissors to the LED at his temple, preparing himself. Gazed into the eyes of his reflection again.

And then, he just couldn’t.

It was too wrong, too against the rules, and he couldn’t bring himself to cut the light off while it blinked and shone, red, angry, desperate. Screamed at him with his own terror.

The tip of the scissors was shaking too hard for Connor to aim it properly. Even if he could move.

The doorknob clicked a millisecond before the light from the hallway flooded the room.

“Connor?” Hank’s usual uncaring tone turned to a shout when he fully took the scene in.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing?!” He ripped the scissors out of Connor’s shaking hands, threw them back at the shelf.

Connor couldn’t say a word, couldn’t arrive at a point nor anything close to an explanation, instead just stuttered: “I-I don’t...I’m sorry,”

He felt like if everything was moving too quickly and he couldn’t grasp the thoughts that were running through his program. He swayed backwards and almost didn’t catch his footing, catching himself with his hand on the wall for balance.

He saw the anger in Hank’s eyes be replaced with worry.

“Connor, are you okay?”

He could tell the truth. He could lie. He had a choice, something he didn’t had before. 

“No,” slipped from his tongue, silent and weak.

“What happened?” Hank barked the question, too worried to be quiet, and Connor winced. “Too loud,” he forced out eventually, clutching his temple with his free hand.

Hank promptly apologized, before his eyes slid from Connor’s own to the LED at his temple.

“Your light’s going all crazy,” he commented.

Connor could sense that Hank didn’t know how to react, didn’t know what to do. A very human thing.

But neither did Connor. Deviants didn’t exactly get their emotions with instructions and google could only do so much.

“Listen, I don’t know how to make this better,” Hank began, laying his hand on Connor’s shoulder, “but maybe we could, uh, go to the living room or something? Away from,” he eyed the scissors,” any sharp things?”

Connor thought about it, looked into the mirror again, unable to see the LED from the angle at which he was standing, but sure it was still blinking red. 

He looked back at Hank where he stood in the light of the hallway, and nodded.


End file.
